28 January 2014

The Great Yorkshire Pudding Disaster ......... AGAIN!!!!!

As some of you may know from reading my blog, I was born and brought up in Sheffield. A wonderfully cosmopolitan, Yorkshire city with lovely, friendly people surrounded by the amazing scenery of the Yorkshire Dales and home to some delicious local food. Yorkshire parkin, pikelets (like crumpets but thinner), Bakewell tart and of course, the Sunday lunch must-have ......Yorkshire pudding. I absolutely love Yorkshire puddings. Sunday lunch is never the same without them. That is why this post is a little bit embarrassing to write. In fact it's A LOT embarrassing to write. The truth of the matter is, for a born and bred Yorkshire lass I am utterly hopeless at making Yorkshire puddings!!!!! In fact, I am so bad at making them that I no longer bother. I use frozen ones instead ......... yes, I know it's cheating and quite possibly sacrilegious but it saves a whole lot of misery and at least they are edible. For this precise reason, I also never make toad-in-the-hole ..... EVER ..... not since the time that the pudding batter around the sausages failed to rise and the kids christened it toad-in-the-swamp! Kids can be so cruel :-)

Anyway, this weekend, while I was roasting the leg of lamb we were having for lunch, along with cooking all the veg, I was panic-stricken to discover that I had completely run out of the frozen puds that I usually use.

No problem, I thought, I will just make some. It will be fine, I said, I can do this. 

Or so I thought.

Turns out ........ I am STILL hopeless at making YorkshireBloodyPuddings!!!!!! 

The frustrating thing is, I don't even know what I'm doing wrong. They taste ok. The problem is they just don't rise. They are flat as pancakes. In fact I could use them as frisbee's. Anyway, after the latest Pudding Palaver, I have vowed to become the Queen of Yorkshire Puddings and have thus warned my daughter accordingly ........ I will be making them every day until I get it right and she will be my chief taster.

So, please please PLEASE could you share your Yorkshire Pudding recipes in the hope that I might produce something that looks less frisbee-esque and more like this .......


And sadly no, this is NOT one I made earlier, I got this picture from the internet  (it's a Delia Smith creation) but essentially ... this is what I am striving for. 

This is the recipe I usually use, I don't know how this compares to other peoples recipes and I will be halving the ingredient amounts or my poor daughter might have to eat hundreds of puddings before I get it right and I'm mindful of her digestion, not to mention her waistline should it take me more than a couple of days to perfect the puds :-)

    Yorkshire Pudding Recipe.

    140g plain flour (this is about 200ml/7fl oz)
    4 eggs (200ml/7fl oz)
    200ml milk
    sunflower oil, for cooking

    Heat oven to 230C/fan 210C/gas 8. Drizzle a little sunflower oil evenly into 2 x 4-hole Yorkshire pudding tins or a 12-hole non-stick muffin tin and place in the oven to heat through.
    To make the batter, tip 140g plain flour into a bowl and beat in four eggs until smooth. Gradually add 200ml milk and carry on beating until the mix is completely lump-free. Season with salt and pepper. Pour the batter into a jug, then remove the hot tins from the oven. Carefully and evenly pour the batter into the holes. Place the tins back in the oven and leave undisturbed for 20-25 mins until the puddings have puffed up and browned. Serve immediately. You can now cool them and freeze for up to 1 month.
  • Recipe from Good Food magazine, February 2009
  • So ........ watch this space for a perfect pudding update :-)

14 comments:

  1. I use much the same amounts as you but use milk and water half and half, I beat the eggs and liquid together and then whisk in the flour. I use dripping or lard in my tin and have it smoking hot, I stand it on a hot ring to fill. Then into a hot oven and do not open the door until it is high and golden brown. For Toad in the Hole I brown the sausages in the tin for 5 to 10 minutes and proceed as above. I do let my batter rest for at least an hour before cooking, just give it a quick whisk first.

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  2. Sorry I can't give you my recipe cos I guess,but you do need some water in.Next time you come up I will show you how I make mine.Do make sure the oil in the pan is very hot .Keep trying and you will soon have lovely Yorkshires x xx

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  3. That Yorkshire Pudding looks just like the ones my Mum and Grandma used to make - I am from Sheffield too. My Grandma used to stand at the back door when beating the batter to get more air in it and added dried sage and grated onion to hers - totally delicious. I don't measure anything but do it by eye like my Mum did using half milk and water to the flour and egg. As long as the dripping is really smoking hot when you pour the batter in you shouldn't have a problem with it rising. Famous last words!

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  4. I use an old Nigella recipe, mix the dry & wet ingredients separately. Leave separate for 1/2 an hour mix, leave again for 1/2 an hour. Then pour into hot oil & straight into a hot oven.

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  5. Found in my Mums old cookbook, she used to make the real ones every week. Hope it works for you.
    Stuff
    4oz plain flour
    pinch salt
    1 med egg
    half pint milk (or half n half milk/water)
    2 oz lard or butter (not veg oil)
    Mix stuff, add egg gently, add milk gradually.Beat well
    Rest for at least half an hour
    To cook:-
    melt more lard or butter in bottom of tins, preheat till haze appears (scary bit)
    Pour in mix (half fill small tins)
    Preheat Gas 8, 230c for 20 mins for smalls, 30 mins for large.
    The scary bit for me is waiting for the fat in the tins to heat up enough. The mix is same as pancakes so needs a 'fry' effect to start them off.
    Have tried with veg oil but they turn out too soft and wimpy!

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  6. Oh, and my Mum is Liverpudlian and I am Yorkshire!

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  7. My first thought when I saw your recipe was ,"Too many eggs!"
    And use lard, not oil.
    Then use Lesley's recipe - the water is needed to lighten the mixture ;)
    Get the lard really, really hot before pouring the rested batter into the tin(s)and you will have risen, crisp Yorkshires every time.

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  8. The recipe from Lesley is just about the same as mine and I have only ever put one egg in.So try that one think you could be nicely surprised x x

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  9. Kay, I think there is nothing wrong with your recipe but I must admit I do tend to do everything that Pam suggested and they rarely fail.

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  10. hi, here's my never fail recipe:

    1x cup of flour (3/4 of which plain flour, the remaining 1/4 self raising)
    1x cup milk (I use semi)
    3x eggs

    whisk all together 'til nice and fluffy and pour into tin (either one large tin or individual 12 hole tin), making sure there's oil (I use sunflower) in the bottom and it's sizzling hot.

    Cook in a hot oven for about 20 - 25 mins - will turn out lovely! Good luck
    BH x

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  11. Sorry, I certainly don't have any knowledge about Yorkshire Puddings and thought that it was a flour, milk and maybe egg mixture that was set underneath the meat that was being roasted so that the drippings fell onto it and made sort of a soft bready like thing to eat with dinner. Where did I get that idea? From reading novels set in England and not properly researched?

    Most confused here in the U.S.

    How do you eat it? Is it to be filled with something like a little tart (the picture you showed looked sort of like a little pie crust or tart shell) or do you break it up and eat it like bread.

    Silly me, silly question. Answer only if you have time out from baking all these test models. Good luck.

    It has been my experience that things never taste as good as when our mothers made them.

    Victoria in Indiana

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  12. This is rather a long time after your original post but thought I'd throw my two eggs worth in! I use Delia's recipe which has never let me down:
    6oz plain flour
    2 eggs
    6 fl oz milk
    4 fl oz water
    salt and pepper
    dripping from the roast
    I make the batter by hand with a balloon whisk and it normally stands around for a couple of hours, but the recipe says it doesn't need to. I then put a small amount of dripping into each hole of a muffin tin, get it really hot and then pour the batter in. The oven needs to be really hot 220 degrees C/425 degrees F/Gas Mark 7. They cook in about 25 minutes! Hope you have some luck!
    x

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  13. Just found your blog and really enjoying it.. Love blogs from the UK. I live across the pond..

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  14. Hi. I use Delia's recipe too. My Delia book says to cook it in a shallow tin (swiss roll tin) and when I do that, I've never had a failure. If I try and cook the mixture in muffin tins, then I get pancakes. I don't understand why but now I just keep to my shallow tin and cook one large pudding.

    Hope it goes right for you.

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